Neferneferuaten belongs to the closing years of the Eighteenth Dynasty's Amarna experiment. Akhenaten had made the Aten central to royal worship and established his capital at Akhetaten, modern Amarna. The years around his death are difficult to reconstruct because short reigns, altered names and reused monuments overlap. Smenkhkare and Neferneferuaten both used the throne name Ankhkheperure, which once encouraged scholars to treat them as a single ruler. Many specialists now distinguish the male Smenkhkare from the female Neferneferuaten, while continuing to debate their sequence and any periods of shared rule.

The evidence for a woman holding kingship lies particularly in the inscriptions. Some versions of the throne name carry a feminine ending, and some epithets use feminine grammar. One epithet is commonly translated as beneficial to her husband. Other additions call the ruler beloved of Waenre or of Neferkheperure, names associated with Akhenaten. These different forms matter more than a general impression that a statue looks feminine. They also need to be read individually: not every inscription uses feminine wording, and beloved of a king is not, on its own, an exclusive title proving marriage.

Nefertiti is a widely supported candidate for the ruler's identity. As queen she already used the expanded name Neferneferuaten Nefertiti, and her prominent ritual appearances made her an important part of the royal religious programme. Crucially, a quarry inscription at Dayr Abu Hinnis names her as Great Royal Wife in Akhenaten's Year 16. Published by Athena Van der Perre, this evidence establishes that she was alive and retained that title late in his reign. It removes the need to explain her absence from selected scenes by assuming an earlier death. It does not, by itself, settle the date on which she might have assumed kingship or the exact length of any co-regency.

Meritaten, the eldest daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, has also been proposed as the female ruler. Her own status as Great Royal Wife beside Smenkhkare is separately attested. Some objects name both Meritaten and Neferneferuaten, and the interpretation of their relationship is part of the debate. The case therefore cannot be reduced to two equally documented biographies awaiting a final choice. Nor should a similarly named royal daughter, Neferneferuaten Tasherit, be automatically identified with the pharaoh. Shared names create possible connections; the accompanying titles and contexts are needed to evaluate them.

A particularly important text was written in Theban tomb TT139, the tomb of Pairi. Dated to Year 3 of the ruler, it preserves a prayer to Amun associated with Pawah and refers to an institution of Ankhkheperure at Thebes. The text shows that devotion to Amun continued within the period represented by Neferneferuaten's royal dating. Scholars have connected it with an easing of the restrictions imposed during Akhenaten's reign. It does not provide a complete national restoration decree. The Year 3 date also means that a confident description of a reign lasting exactly two years is too precise: entering a third regnal year and completing three full years are not the same thing.

Funerary objects in Tutankhamun's tomb provide another line of evidence. In his study of the inscribed material, Nozomu Kawai discusses objects including a gold pectoral of Nut and canopic coffinettes whose earlier names were altered. They show that equipment associated with Neferneferuaten entered a later king's burial. The conclusion need not be extended to every object proposed as a reuse, or to a claim that Tutankhamun's entire burial was assembled from hers. A shortage of money, a specific act of deposition or a particular treatment of her body cannot be established merely from reused equipment.

The end of Neferneferuaten's reign remains inseparable from these incomplete records. Her burial has not been securely identified, and proposed portraits depend on their individual inscriptions and archaeological contexts. The later suppression and reuse of Amarna monuments further complicates the reconstruction. The royal name is securely attested even while the person behind it remains debated; a separate name does not necessarily mean a separate woman. Neferneferuaten's importance lies in the evidence for female kingship during a religious and dynastic transition, and in the care needed to distinguish the ruler's documented names from the unresolved history behind them.